One of the oldest and most widely understood games and forms of entertainment is billiards, which in its various forms and in different parts of the world includes pool, caroms, and snooker. Improvements have been made in billiards equipment for well over a century.
Billiards involves directional driving of hard balls on a tabletop by hitting them with another hard ball known as the cue ball. The cue ball is directed toward the target balls by striking it with what is known as a cue stick. A cue stick has a cue tip, that is, the portion which engages the cue ball.
Cue tips are made of firm leather or other similar material which is neither too soft nor too hard. When the cue tip is in good condition, it not only can impact a ball with accuracy but, depending on how it is impacted, can impart a spin to the cue ball which is helpful in achieving the intended cue ball motion both before and after the cue ball hits the target ball. When in good condition, cue tips will also receive and hold chalk to help in proper cue tip - cue ball engagement.
A long-standing and very well recognized problem with billiards cue tips is that they become very hard and even shiny after excessive use. As a result they fail to engage the cue ball properly. And, they cannot hold chalk properly very long.
More specifically, hardened and even shiny cue tips tend to slip on the cue ball surface unless the dead center of the cue ball is struck. But it is often highly desirable to strike the cue ball away from, rather than on, its dead center, since striking it in an off-center position will impart desired cue ball spin. This can be very difficult with a hardened and even shiny cue tip.
Furthermore, as noted, a cue tip which is hardened from excessive use does not hold chalk well. The result is that, after chalking, the benefit of the chalk is prematurely gone. Because of this, hardened and shiny cue tips seriously degrade the performance of those using them.
Many inventions and devices have been proposed and used over the last century for the purpose of repairing hardened cue tips and/or otherwise dressing them for continued use. The following United States patents dealing with the subject of dressing billiards cue tips have been issued:
4,785,586 (Kratfel) PA0 4,594,782 (Willard) PA0 3,989,079 (Treadway) PA0 3,963,237 (Bushberger) PA0 3,728,828 (Freedman) PA0 1,297,041 (Trieber) PA0 1,259,136 (Rogers) PA0 1,021,128 (Brecker) PA0 636,199 (Davies) PA0 587,016 (Paine) PA0 451,938 (Klapperich) PA0 362,526 (Mueller) PA0 284,548 (Gwyn) PA0 221,164 (Fautz) PA0 75,049 (Pernot).
Many of such prior patents disclose billiards cue tip dressing devices of the type with non-smooth surfaces for application against hardened cue tips. They disclose scruffing, sanding, or abrading the cue tip surfaces roughen them. To that end, such devices include abrasive compositions, abrasive wheels, file-like serrations, sandpaper, emery cloth, and the like. Such prior patents speak of rubbing the non-smooth surface on the hardened cue tip or spinning the hardened cue tip on such surface.
In many cases, such attempts at cue tip dressing have disadvantages. For example, such cue tip treatments will erode and eventually wear away the cue tip material, rendering the remaining cue tip material useless. And, in many cases such abrading does not improve the condition of the cue tip as much as might be desired, with the result that the cue tip will become hardened again too quickly such that it cannot function well or adequately receive and hold cue chalk.
In short, there is a continuing need for an improved billiards cue tip dressing device and method.